Looks suspicious to me. It just has too many great features on one bottle. I am sure the bottle itself is period, but if you put your order in for a back bar that has everything, this is it.Way too good to be true. IF it is legit, its as good as it gets.

With that said, The source of the bottle is a well known and advanced western collector. That helped prompt me to move forward.

I spent quite a while going over the photo with a cynical eye prior to even wasting time on the article I posted on WWG. http://www.westernwhiskeytooltopgazette.com/2017/08/speaking-of-gold.html

One of the things that I used in Photoshop are advanced features that allow you to dissect a photo in order to see if it had been messed with. It had not. Further close inspection at high magnification showed flaking of the gilt in many areas, what are quite obviously age related deterioration, and not someones attempt to disguise a modern attempt at "faking".

I'm not easily fooled and am going out on a limb as saying that this is an exceptional piece of western history to the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890's and a failed western whiskey firm that never got the wind it's sails.

Like Dale said, this is the equivalent of a new applied top 5th coming to light in pure yellow embossed "Wild West Old Bourbon / O'Reilly & Co. Sole Agents For Pacific Coast / 312 Battery St / San Francisco, Cala." With an embossed gold miner with pick in hand. Possible, but hard to believe! What I mean is, I'd never throw a dollar at it.....

I'm more than a little curious as to why a bottle with that much power and mystique, has not been seen or at the very least been known of or heard about by the big guns in the hobby.The Downieville show is coming up soon so what better venue for an unveiling.Bring it on Mr.advanced western collector and give the handful of expert western collectors left in the hobby,a first hand look.

WOW, all I can do is laugh. "blind fools" and if you guys think bottle collectors are the big guns of the hobby, your sadly mistaking. Yes, the biggest guns in the hobby do know about it,(not bottle collectors) its just a small group of tight lipped collectors who don't like everyone to know what they have. I'm the same way. ...If the owner did come forward, you would all feel real stupid. He is one of the untouchables of western collectors. He final, at his age decided to share a photo of it to share with the bottle community. So, just enjoy seeing it. It's something we all wish we could have.

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